"Leisure, consumption, and communication" is apt in describing the trifecta of themes in which Martin Parr explores through his saturated and gluttonous vistas of humanities seemingly inexorable appetite. Parr's seminal work, shot documentary style in rich hues on the beaches of New Brighton in the nineteen-eighties, captured an aura of man as beast in a dog-eat-dog false paradise; a notion propagated by the common belief that force feeding yourself to oblivion was good and fine for society. The book, entitled Last Resort, which has just been rereleased by Dewi Lewis Publishing–this time with an added forward–put Martin Parr on the map.
